Building a hackintosh—that is, installing Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware—used to require extremely restricted hardware choices and quite a bit of know-how. Now your options are vast and the installation process is fairly simple. With that in mind, here is our always up-to-date guide to building a hackintosh that will walk you through purchasing compatible parts, building your machine, and installing OS X all on your own.

First Things First: What Is a Hackintosh, Exactly?

A hackintosh is simply any non-Apple hardware that has been made—or "hacked"—to run Mac OS X. This could apply to any hardware, whether it's a
manufacturer-made or personally-built computer. For the purposes of this guide, we're only discussing a tried-and-true method for building a hackintosh that
you build.

Dear Lifehacker, I have a Sorny Inspironbookmate 2564300iP00. Can I make Hackintosh? But seriously, …
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That means you'll need to be comfortable with the idea of
building your own machine
and providing your own technical support when you run into problems. While this can be a little bit of a scary prospect if you're new to building a hackintosh, it'll also save you a lot of money while still providing you with an incredibly powerful, fully customizable machine. We'll also point you to several resources we've put together to help you learn everything you need to know about building a computer so you can feel confident on your first time through the entire computer building process. This is not a project for beginners, but it is something that anyone can learn to do.

How Does This Guide Work?

It may seem strange to have an always up-to-date guide to building a hackintosh, because the process changes based on the hardware choices you make. Although this is true, it doesn't change that much. We'll be discussing the process of building a hackintosh on a broad level, as it applies to most hardware. As a result, this guide will not always be able to tell you the exact boxes to tick and choices to make, but it
will teach you how to figure that out for yourself. We'll hold your hand as tightly as possible through as much of the process as we can, but there will be some decisions you'll have to make on your own. It can be a little scary sometimes, but that's part of the fun.

In summary, this always up-to-date guide will explain how to pick the right hardware for a great hackintosh and walk you through the standard OS X installation process, but it will also require you to be diligent and informed in regards to the variables in your specific build.

How to Choose the Best Hardware for Your Needs

Picking out hardware and building a computer is often the most daunting part of this process. Thankfully, we're here to do a lot of the work for you! While you can certainly
do your own research and pick out compatible parts, we've created a large selection of pre-configured systems along with a list of compatible parts for you to build your own.

CustoMac Pro: A full-sized build with a quad-core CPU, maxed out RAM, and lots of expandability.

CustoMac Pro Socket 2011: The most powerful single CPU system you can build.

Alternatively, you can check out our list of individual components and build your own custom system. The components listed in our database aren't the
only ones that work, but based on our research they're the easiest and best supported options. Use our Buyer's Guide as a shopping list or as a jumping off point for further customization.

Building a computer from scratch gives you the perfect machine for your needs, but it can be…
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How to Install OS X on Your Hackintosh

Installing OS X on hackintosh hardware involves a bit more than just popping in a DVD, choosing a boot volume, and clicking a button. You'll have to take those steps, too, but after quite a bit of prep work. Let's get started.

The full operating system is a free download for anyone who has purchased Mac OS X Snow Leopard, Lion, or Mountain Lion, or a Mac pre-loaded with Mavericks, so you'll need a real Mac to get it (if you don't have one, just borrow a friend's). Download the Application from the Mac App Store using your Apple ID on any Mac or functional computer running Mac OS X 10.6.8 or later.

To access BIOS/UEFI Setup, press and hold Delete on a USB Keyboard while the system is booting up.

Load Optimized Defaults before doing anything else.

If your CPU supports VT-d, find the setting and disable it.

If your system has CFG-Lock, find the setting and disable it.

If your system has Secure Boot Mode, find the setting and disable it.

Set OS Type to Other OS, if applicable.

Save and exit. Your machine should reboot.

Step 2: Install Mac OS X Yosemite

Now it's time to actually install OS X. There are a few ways to do this, but we recommend UniBeast for those new to the process, and Clover for more advanced users who have done everything before and don't necessarily need a walkthrough.

Highlight the USB drive in the left column and click on the Partition tab. Click Current and choose "1 partition".

Click Options and choose "Master Boot Record".

Under Format choose "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)".

When it's finished, close Disk Utility and run UniBeast.

Follow the wizard on screen, choosing your USB drive when prompted, and selecting Yosemite when asked what version of OS X you are installing.

Finish clicking through the wizard to create your USB drive. This should take about 10-15 minutes.

Drag MultiBeast to your new flash drive so you have it for later.

Insert your new installer flash drive into your soon-to-be hackintosh. Boot up the system and press the hotkey to choose a boot device (usually F12 or F8). Choose your flash drive when prompted.

At the Chimera boot screen, choose USB and press Enter. If you have trouble reaching the installer, check out step 4 on this page for more information.

Choose your language on the welcome screen, then head to Utilities > Disk Utility.

Highlight the hard drive you want to use for OS X in the left column, click the Partition tab, then choose "1 partition" in the dropdown menu.

Click the Options button and select "GUID Partition Method".

Give your drive a name, choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) from the Format dropdown, then click Apply and Partition. Close Disk Utility when the process is finished.

Go through the rest of the installation wizard to complete the process.

This is a somewhat condensed version of the installation process, which should get you through everything you need. For a complete walkthrough with step-by-step screenshots and additional troubleshooting information (in case you run into problems), see
my full guide at tonymacx86.com.

Option Two: Clover (Experts Only)

Clover is a new and exciting open source EFI bootloader. Developed over the past 2 years by a group of developers at Project OS X led by Slice, Clover aims to solve problems inherent in existing OS X installation methods and legacy bootloaders. Clover has a completely different system of configuration with a decidedly steep learning curve. It can be confusing for those who have only ever used the more traditional Chameleon or Chimera. Clover is also in beta stage, and is not guaranteed to work well for all systems. Development has been fast and furious, with many major changes appearing in the code all the time. Clover can be a moving target, difficult to pin down- almost, it seems, by design. Recent changes, however, have stabilized things enough to be a reliable alternative for those adventurous enough to learn something new.

Step Three: Install Your Drivers

Now that you've got Mavericks installed, it's time to make all your hardware work properly. MultiBeast is an all-in-one post-installation tool designed to enable boot from hard drive, and installs support for Audio, Network, and Graphics. It also includes System Utilities to repair permissions and a collection of drivers and config files.

Start up MultiBeast from your USB drive and follow these steps:

If this is a fresh installation, click Quick Start to choose EasyBeast, UserDSDT, or DSDT-Free. Chances are you'll want to choose DSDT-free here, unless you have an older build that requires a DSDT.

Click Drivers for Audio, Graphics, and Network options. Again, this will depend on your build but you'll likely need drivers for audio. Find out the chipset on your motherboard and choose the relevant AppleHDA driver for it. You may also need Ethernet drivers. Most everything else will be determined by whether or not you chose other natively compatible hardware like your GPU. Some GPUs require special drivers and others work by default.

Click Customize for further options. You'll want to choose a hibernate mode—most likely desktop, as this guide doesn't deal with laptops, turn on Generate CPU States, and turn on Use KernelCache. Changes here will vary based on your hardware choices, but those are the basics.

Click Print or Save to back up your configuration.

Click Build, then click Install. Let MultiBeast do its thing.

Restart your computer to complete the installation.

MultiBeast is meant to be used as a post-installation method for UniBeast, and is therefore an easy way to get up and running. For Clover, you need to manually install any kexts into /EFI/Clover/kexts and configure your /EFI/Clover/config.plist according to your own hardware.

Alternate NVIDIA Graphics Drivers

NVIDIA releases alternate graphics drivers separately on the web for each OS X build. These are different from the drivers Apple ships as standard, and should be considered experimental. In the past, the drivers have been known to solve OpenCL issues with certain applications, as well as providing better native GPU power management for certain devices. They also will enable the latest 'Maxwell' cards to work with full acceleration, including the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750, GTX 750 Ti, GTX 970, and GTX 980. You can
read more about these drivers and download them here.

Step Four: Updating Your Hackintosh

With past versions of OS X, updating OS X usually requires you to reinstall any graphics, network, and audio drivers with MultiBeast that you installed in step three.
Stay tuned to the tonymacx86.com front page for Update posts, where we outline what workarounds, if any, are necessary for each Software Update Apple throws at us. (For example, here's what you had to do for OS X 10.9.3, 10.9.4, and 10.9.5).

How to Troubleshoot Your Hackintosh

Hackintoshes aren't perfect—things can go wrong for any number of reasons. It's unlikely you'll create one without running into, at least, a minor dilemma. A lot of troubleshooting involves trial and error, unfortunately, and you'll just have to tinker around until you get the problem fixed. If you run into some problems, you will likely be able to find support on
tonymacx86.com.

Finally, once you do get things working you should
clone your hard drive so you have a bootable copy available should things go awry. This way you can restore back to that copy or at least compare the things that changed since it was all working nicely. No matter what you think, you're going to screw something up at some point. Keep a backup. You won't regret it.